Tag Archives: Laurent Lamothe

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Youri LATORTUE, who is playing Mr. Clean politics in the Haiti Senate, is not clean himself. In fact, I don’t know one “clean” Haitian politician in existence. They are all crooks. Haitian politics is not for pious folks; the system itself breeds corruption.

Now he is claiming having talked to Eberwein –before he committed suicide on Tuesday, July 11 in a South Dade motel –who shared with him important yet mind-boggling revelations. Since the dead man cannot be around to attest to such claim, it is now up to you and me in the court of public opinion to believe such idiocy.

Let us not forget that the Artibonite senator aka Mr. Clean Wannabe was a top advisor in the Martelly National Palace during the entire President Martelly’s five-year term, meaning if corruption there was, he must have known about it, he must have been a part of it. He was not an outsider like you and me. If anything, he should be investigated.

All this noise he is making with the commission’s so-called corruption findings is political in nature. He is preparing the public opinion for an eventual decision by his ethics committee in the Senate to deny former Prime Minister Lamothe his administrative clearance papers, which he will need should he decide to run for president in 2021.

It is not a secret that Youri LATORTUE, the leader of Ayiti An Aksyon, will be running for president in 2021. He knows Lamothe is a VERY potential player on the ground who could be for him a fierce competitor to beat. So he has got to stop him from entering the race. And the only best way for him to do so is to use this bogus ethics committee in the Senate as his political weapon –to deny him his administrative clearance.

Now, one mistake LATORTUE, the President of the Senate, is on the verge of making is that he is not factoring in the people in his political calculus. What will be the reaction of the people vis-à-vis the political slaughtering of PM Lamothe is of paramount importance. The people are watching… they understand what is going on. They will react. This is simply a fair warning.

If I were Youri LATORTUE, instead of indulging in this show of demagoguery politics, I would focus more on solving the issues facing the people in my Artibonite District –where there is a 3-year-old brand new and fully equipped hospital, Providence Hospital, the only state-of-the-art hospital in the district, built by the Canadian government –in a state of “irreversible degradation.” The operation of the hospital is stalled by corruption, yet LATORTUE is playing Mr. Clean politics in the Senate. Isn’t that something? He needs to do his job; he needs to focus on what really matters.

Now that the presidential campaign phase for the Lavalas election is pretty much on the way, candidates from all walks of life are looking around for political endorsements –to increase their chances of winning the election. One of the big endorsements they are probably flirting with is that of former Prime Minister Lamothe.

The former prime minister is not in the race, so it would be pointless to support his candidacy, as I passionately did when he attempted to run for president last year. He will get my full and unconditional support whenever he decides to run again. But, in the meantime, we on the right of the political spectrum have a horse in the race, and that is Jovenel Moise, Neg Bannann nan, whom PM Lamothe agree with ideologically and politically to some extent.

If you run an opinion poll right now, you will find out that most of the people that had supported PM Lamothe for president are with Jovenel. There is a reason for that, and the reason is that they both have more things they agree on ideologically and politically than they disagree on –they are both on the right.

We [on the right] have an election to win for the country. So we are making a patriotic call to PM Lamothe for him to rally behind Jovenel in this election. In my humble opinion, I think it would be a big political miscalculation on his part to pick someone else to endorse or not endorse anyone at all. As a politician, you should always prime the country’s best interest over anything else –the country cannot survive five years of the Lavalas anarchists.

PM Lamothe does not have to join PHTK to endorse Jovenel. I am not a member of PHTK, yet I am a diehard supporter of Jovenel. Many Republicans, for instance, have supported Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, over Donald Trump, the nominee of their party. This is about the country, not party affiliation.

When you want to see certain political, economic and social changes occur, since you are a political heavyweight, any politician, whom you agree with ideologically, looking for your political endorsement must pay a price. That price, of course, will not be in monetary value or anything; it would be in that politician’s agenda. That politician must accept to make some key policy changes in the agenda upon which he or she intends to campaign and win. I was thrilled when I heard Jovenel mention during an interview that he intends to continue with the signature policies Laurent Lamothe had championed –Ti Manman Cheri, Kore Etidyan, Restoran Popile, etc –which he got beaten for left and right by the Lavalas leftists.

We just got to witness what happened between Bernie and Hillary in the Democratic Party. Bernie and Hillary had some serious policy disagreements, explaining the reason as to why we had a very heated primary. After Hillary had secured the nomination, knowing that it would be mathematically and politically impossible for her to win the general election without the Bernie supporters, representatives of both campaigns met to craft the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party. Bernie got in there a lot of the things he had wanted for the young people and working class Americans who voted for him –such as debt-free college education for the young people and $15 minimum wage, which Hillary politically calls a “living wage,” for the working class. That’s how it is done.

As a new generation politician, PM Lamothe needs to show that he embodies a different kind of politics; he needs to break ties with the archaic way of doing politics in the country. Political grudges and bickerings won’t change the dire socioeconomic situation of the majority, which he has pledged to topple. My advice to him is to join hands with Jovenel, our candidate in the race, and together make the changes happen. Of course, not everything they are going to agree on. That’s politics. But if they focus on the things they agree on, they can accomplish a lot together for the betterment of the country.

Like this:

President Martelly and former Prime Minister Lamothe not looking too happy.

In an article entitled Michel Martelly: “J’avais dit à Sophia et à Lamothe qu’ils ne pouvaient pas être candidats à la presidence” [in English, Michel Martelly: “I had told Sophia and Lamothe they could not be presidential candidates”] published on Monday, June 15, 2015 in Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s only daily newspaper, President Martelly stated: “I had instructed Lamothe that he would not be my candidate for president because I had realized that we were going to have elections with political parties not so comfortable with the idea of him being my candidate, which would give him the competitive edge over his opponents. It was important for me to instill trust in the candidates and credibility in the system so that everyone would believe they could win.”

What a load of charade! Who are his political advisers? If this strategy came from his gang of advisers, all of them ought to be fired? I do not want to think he had acted on his own, without consulting with his advisers on political affairs. I really do not want to think that.

How do you instill trust and credibility in an electoral system, Mr. President?

That’s the one-million-dollar question we need to answer. Mr. President, you instill trust and credibility in an electoral system by making sure that the electoral institution operates in full transparency and fairness, which will level the playing field for all the players in the game. As the guarantor of all the state institutions, Mr. President, that is part of your constitutional prerogatives.

It is expected of every sitting president to choose someone in their entourage who is electable [with a positive track record] to represent their party in an electoral contest. It was expected of President George H. W. Bush to endorse Vice President Dan Quayle for president; it was expected of President Bill Clinton to endorse Vice President Al Gore’s candidacy for president to succeed him. For the sake of ideological continuity, Mr. President, that is what sitting presidents are expected to do. And doing so would not compromise in any shape or form trust and credibility in the electoral system itself.

It is like telling me you are the general of an army going to war with a potential enemy and decide to leave behind your best warriors, those you can count on to take your army to victory. What kind of a general are you, and what kind of a battle strategy are you executing?

Choosing Lamothe would not have guaranteed him a win. For him to win, he would have relied on his political astuteness to put together a winning strategy. Since I have been following presidential politics, I have witnessed candidates endorsed by sitting presidents losing elections all the time. The opposition could have won running against Lamothe. They would have bet on the effectiveness of their campaign strategy to frame their political arguments against him.

Further down in the article, almost close to the end, he said about Lamothe: “Lamothe may have more ardor than me and be more hi-tech than I am, but be careful; it’s neither being hi-tech nor having money that makes me but rather my profundity and grandeur.”

Was this statement necessary, seriously? This is puerile thinking, to say the least. It really downgrades the president’s character. It shows me that he is not concerned about the future of the country; he is more concerned about his ego, his delusion of grandeur.

Nothing stops Martelly from being hi-tech. He can always be so if he wants. In that statement, he comes across as someone who is envious of Lamothe for who he is and what he is. There is a level grotesqueness we do not expect our heads of state to stoop to.

Mr. President, with all due respect, you have made a blunder. Please admit it. Find a better excuse to justify your decision next time. And until you find one that makes sense, you should not be talking to the press on that matter, for the more you do, the more you will be making ridiculous and embarrassing revelations.

President Martelly and his cronies in the Provisional Electoral Council (PEC) are preparing to kidnap and rape our democracy –the democracy thousands of our brothers and sisters have died for over the years.

Instead of organizing free, fair and inclusive elections to allow the people to choose their leaders, these enemies of our democracy are organizing a SELECTION, in total violation of our civil and political rights, and want to force it down our throats.

The Provisional Electoral Council –the institution put together to organize free, fair and inclusive elections in the country –has been vassalized and used as a political instrument [by these enemies of our democracy] to bar for POLITICAL REASONS former Prime Minister Lamothe from running for president. Mind you, he is the solid front-runner in the race.

Since we do not believe in violence –“kraze brize,” burning tires and terrorist activities to make our voices heard –we are going to use the nonviolent and most effective approach to pressure Martelly and his goons in the PEC to correct their misstep, faux pas, blunder or impropriety.

We believe that if we could cut the money supply financing this masquerade SELECTION, there is no way they can move forward with it. The way we are going to do that is simple. We are going to click on the attached link and locate our senators’ names, their phone numbers and email addresses. We are going to either call their offices or write them a simple note to denounce what President Martelly and his subjects in the PEC are doing in Haiti. We are going to ask them to stop financing the SELECTION in Haiti; we demand and deserve free, fair, inclusive and democratic elections.

The blatant abuse of power going on in Haiti can only perpetuate if and only if we the people do not take action. We have the power to change the political dynamics in the country, so let’s stop complaining and take action. The tax dollars of the American people must not be used to finance a masquerade SELECTION that does not represent their value system.

Like this:

The Provisional Electoral Council (PEC) in Haiti, the institution formed ad hoc to organize the upcoming elections, is preparing a SELECTION, in total disregard of the civil and political rights of the Haitian people.

Honest, credible and law-abiding candidates have seen their candidacies rejected by the PEC for political reasons.

The Haitian people demand fair, credible, transparent and inclusive elections –the way it should be done in a democracy –to guarantee political stability and economic growth and development. I do not think that is too much to ask.

So we are calling on the international community, mainly the United States, co-financing these elections to stand for what is right and make certain that the democratic rights of the people are respected. Millions of dollars should not be wasted in financing bogus and undemocratic elections in Haiti.